Bolan grunted. "I could have written that script."
"Yeah. Well, it's a good one, from our point of view. You did some good work out there last night, Sarge, and Brognola wants you to know that he's well aware of it. It shook them good and embarrassed a lot of their traveling companions. Nobody got booked out there last night, but a hell of a lot of interesting names got added to the make lists. Now the whole Combination is jittery as hell. Hal would sure like it better, though, if you could just forget you ever heard of Butch Cassidy. I'm sorry I even mentioned the name."
"You didn't have to, Leo. And I can't forget it. It's a personal matter. I'll walk as softly as possible, but I have to make that guy."
Turrin sighed. "Then we'll consider him made. Talk to the guy if you feel like you must, but I got a personal message for you from myself."
"I'm listening."
"End it there. Talk to Butch Cassidy, find out whatever it is you think you have to know. Then fade. Quick. Go somewhere far and quiet, and lay for a while. This is between buddies. As you are standing there right now, Sarge, you're a dead man. You're dead. Unless you get out of this town quick. Now they're up for you. All of them. Both sides of the street. The cops are at full mobe, riot units and all. By sundown they'll have roving patrols — you could call them destroyer forces — just prowling the streets and poised for a quick response. They have armored vehicles, massive firepower, gas, gadgets, the whole bit. Besides that, a special force of U.S. marshals hit town about an hour ago — every one of them an expert marksman and they're packing big rifles."
"I know about all that," Bolan commented wearily. "Thanks anyway."
"That's just one side. The other is just as bad. The cream of the country's streets have packed this town, and they're all heavy guns. I'm at Damio's, and holding. Buffalo is over at Thomasetta's. Three New York crews are brooding over — "
"Save it, Leo. I know."
"You save it. Get out."
"Can't."
"Damn it, why not? What's so damned urgent?"
"I told you. Personal."
"Graves are very impersonal, Sarge. What do you want engraved on your marker? 'Here lies Mack Bolan's war'? Over some personal vendetta?"
"It's no vendetta. It's an onus."
"A what?
"Forget it. I'll fade as soon as I can."
"Don't hit that joint out there again."
"The yacht club?"
"That's the one. They're expecting you back. Charley is stacking the joint with every gun he can command. It won't be as soft as it was last night."
"Who says it was soft last night?" Bolan muttered.
"Okay, call it piss hard for tonight. And stay away."
"I plan to."
"Okay. Hey. Don't get down on Hal. Hell, he's got high rankers crawling all over him."
"I know that," Bolan said. He sighed. "Brognola's a good man. Give him my best. But no apologies. I do what I have to do, Leo."
"Sure. Stay hard, man."
"You, too."
Bolan hung up, gazed coolly at the police vehicle parked alongside the booth, then thumbed in another dime. It was time to activate his auxiliary.
Her voice came on the line cool and calm. "Yes?"
"It's the guy," he told her. "You'll find keys in the coffee can. They fit a gray EconoLine van parked below, slot G-12. Pick me up at the corner of Kelly and Morang. Twenty minutes."
"Wait. Where's that? Approximately."
"East on Eight Mile to Kelly. That's just beyond Gratiot. South to Morang."
"Got it. Do you need the stuff in the other car?"
"I transferred it this morning."
"Oh, okay. Anything else?"
"Just be there."
"Try and keep me away," she replied breathlessly.
He hung up and watched the setting sun for a moment, then returned to the vehicle.
Sunrise, sunset. Birth, death. Man, woman. Person, cosmos. Yeah.
He lit a cigarette and put the car in motion.
All the numbers were in. The onus was in the saddle and riding Bolan. And the death image over Detroit was settling in for the night watch.
18
Ridden
Emerson had once observed, "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."
Bolan would not argue with a man so wise. He'd had the same feeling himself, many times.
He was already twelve hours beyond his deadline for leaving this town. The plan had been the usual — hit and git. Before the opposition could rally itself. Before the cops could gear up. Before the whirlpool of uncontrollable events could suck a guy into his grave.
Bolan's cosmic contempt was for death — not for life. He respected life and her myriad involvements. He was not exactly in love with the one he'd lived for the past few eternities — no man could truly enjoy a trip down blood river. Bolan certainly did not. But it was the only trip open to him now, his only apparent reason to go on living. And Mack Bolan certainly respected life enough to go on living, for as long as the grim game could be continued.
Sure, things were in the saddle. And they rode Bolan.
He had scouted this town with all the expertise at his disposal. He had read the enemy, counted them, sectored them. Then he'd hit them where he thought the hitting would yield the best results. There had been no grand dream of obliterating the enemy from this landscape. Bolan was a realist. He did not rely on miracles. He knew that a one-man army had its limitations. Given enough time, sure, a guy who knew his business could eventually put the Detroit mob out of business. That was the hooker, though. There was not that much time on earth left at Bolan's disposal — certainly not that much time left in Detroit. His whole success thus far had been built upon commando tactics. Invade the enemy with great force, raise all the hell possible, then withdraw — and all of it to the cadence count, on tight numbers, moving swiftly and never letting down until withdrawal was complete. Any deviation from that timetable could be disastrous.
The strike at Detroit had been carefully planned along those very lines. The timing could not have been better. He'd caught them mobbed into a business conference, and he'd struck them there. He'd sent them in squalling and disorganized retreat, and he'd served notice on their "friends" that doing business with the mob could be hazardous. Also, he would have brought their damned hard-site down and left the rubble for them to contemplate — and the Detroit hit would have been worth it for that alone. Their God-complex would have been shaken, if nothing else.
But, sure, things were in the saddle at Detroit.
Here sat the commando force, twelve hours off its numbers, completely derailed from the original mission, contemplating the end of the game.
Leo Turrin had not been exaggerating the situation. Bolan's recon had yielded the same intelligence. Death was watching him. And all he could do was watch her back.
Well … not quite. He was still on the offensive. The game had changed a bit, sure, but the enemy was still the enemy, and Bolan was still Bolan — and he had not been ridden beneath the waves of blood river yet.
The dictates of an impersonal war had yielded to a strongly personal responsibility. Okay, call it by its true name: duty. Bolan had a duty to perform for a couple of daughters of Eve — and, in the face of that duty, he could gaze back at Death and spit in her eye.